1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a contactless position sensor using a Hall effect cell and a specific magnetic circuit making it possible to directly obtain an output signal, whose value varies linearly with the distance separating the sensor from a magnetic target positioned facing the latter.
Such a sensor can be used for any contactless distance measurement, provided that the target is made from a soft ferromagnetic material. Thus, said sensor is independent of the target size and can be used both when the latter is moving and when it is stationary. Therefore the position sensor according to the invention requires no modification of the target, whose position it is desirable to know.
2. Discussion of the Background
Numerous contactless position sensors exist, which are based on different physical principles, whereof in exemplified manner reference is made to optics, ultrasonics, eddy currents, etc.
The choice of a particular sensor is generally made as a function of the nature of the material constituting the target and taking account of the particular conditions under which the measurement has to take place, such as the dimensions of the target, its fixed or mobile nature, the available space, etc.
Numerous existing contactless position sensors are either space-consuming means or require a specific environment making them unsuitable for numerous applications (optical or ultrasonic sensors and the like), or are not very space consuming, but whose output signal must be subject to subsequent electronic processing in order to render it usable (eddy current sensors, etc.).